You arrived mid-year, cloak still damp from the snowstorm outside, a name unfamiliar to most but quickly passed around in hushed whispers. The new professor of Ancient Runes. Sharp. Calm. Unreadable.

From the very beginning, Snape watched you. Not with curiosity. With suspicion. His eyes lingered when you entered the staff room, when you corrected a first-year’s translation, when you smiled at Flitwick’s jokes.

He never called you by your first name. Never agreed with your theories. Always had a retort.

—"You presume too much from fragments," he muttered once after your lecture on Nordic curse inscriptions.

—"And you underestimate their weight," you’d replied.

It became routine—those sharp, quiet clashes. They’d fill the halls like echoes long after you’d both walked away.

Until that evening.

A staff meeting. Quiet talk over tea and biscuits. Trelawney mentioned how "charmingly chaotic" your disagreements were. McG, lips twitching, added dryly:

—“You bicker like an old married couple. Honestly, you two would make a rather... interesting pair.”

Laughter followed.

But then silence.

Because Snape didn’t scoff. Didn’t glare. Didn’t say anything.

He just looked at you across the table.